Though Montagu is hailed as one of the first to bring smallpox inoculation to England from Turkish practice, or praised for her epistolary style of travel writing, or even widely acknowledged for her depictions of harems and Turkish women, the question that arises is this: how, and why, are these accomplishments actually depicted in her literature, or more specifically, in her Turkish Embassy Letters? Some critics have simply acknowledged her work for its unique feminine content, while others have tried to narrowly place her in either a strict travel or feminist genre, pertaining to a distinct segment within the divided rational and sentimental segments of the Enlightenment. One such important dualism is the author’s simultaneously rational and sentimental style, which when explored shows that Montagu’s aesthetic expands the period’stravel writing narrative. Though there has been much research done in the past three decades on Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s writing in regards to her promotion and description of femininity in Turkey, as well as her historical and societal contributions to eighteenth-century England through her knowledge of inoculation, there are still some dualisms which cannot be easily categorized or.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |